Hot Topics:

Greening up the baby's nursery

By Mark Collins For the Camera

Posted:
07/30/2012 02:23:50 PM MDT

Updated:
07/30/2012 02:25:00 PM MDT

Store manager Amanda Chesnutt, right, reads a story to Eli Greene, 3, while his mother Tessa Greene and his 3-month old brother Oliver shop for baby gear at Bundle Diaper Service and Baby Shop in Boulder.
(
JEREMY PAPASSO
)

Creating a newborn's nursery can be a fun and sometimes daunting challenge for expecting parents. One parent may want everything color coordinated, another may want to include toys he remembers from his childhood stacked in a corner. Some parents want everything in the room brand new, while others are fine with hand-me-downs.

One thing any parent would agree upon is the nursery needs to be safe for the baby. Nowadays, that means not only creating a nursery free of sharp edges or unguarded electrical outlets, but free from environmental dangers you can't see. In addition, there are environmentally sustainable choices new parents can make when figuring out how to care for the new addition to the family.

The walls

Most paints contain volatile organic compounds, which can be harmful to sensitive people, including newborns, when they're inhaled. Many paint brands these days, however, carry lines of paint that are manufactured to contain no VOCs or low amounts of VOCs. Jennifer Hankey, a mother of two who runs a business consulting and educating new and expecting parents about keeping baby in a clean environment, suggests opting for the former.

"When you're painting the room, use a no-VOC, not a low-VOC paint," said Hankey, whose online sites can be found at organicbabyuniversity.com and wholepregnancy.org. "It takes up to two years for the VOCs to disperse. A lot of people assume that once the smell is gone the VOCs are gone. That's not true."

Advertisement

She also pointed out that in many cases, the VOCs aren't in the base paint, but are in the tint used to give the paint its color.

"What many parents will do is go get a no-VOC paint and then get it colored, and that puts all those VOCs right back into the paint," she said.

Make sure that if you're purchasing no-VOC paint, the tint used to color it also contains no harmful VOCs.

Sleepy time

The newborn mattress industry is riddled with greenwashing -- deceptive, largely unregulated marketing practices that can lead consumers to believe a product is environmentally safe when it may not be -- Hankey warned.

"Parents get snookered in this one," she said of the pursuit of green mattresses.

Some companies offer lines of "organic" or "natural" mattresses, she said. But when you read the fine print you'll find it says something like "made with organic material." Exactly how much of the mattress is made from organic material is undisclosed.

"Yes, they might have some organic cotton in them, but you're still toxifying your children," Hankey said. "It's a critical piece; the child is sleeping up to 18 hours a day on it."

Read the fine print and make sure the brand of crib mattress you're buying is certified organic by an agency such as the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS).

Much furniture is made of engineered wood these days, including cribs. Problematic glues are typically used in engineered furniture, and the glues leak, or off-gas, harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde.

"The best thing they can do is buy real-wood furniture," Hankey said. "If they can't afford it because it's expensive, I recommend going on Craigslist and buying real, solid wood furniture."

If you're buying used crib, make sure it meets current safety standards such as the spacing between the bars. Many older cribs don't.

Hankey suggests buying a pine crib."You can buy an unfinished one and finish it yourself with a (toxin-free) beeswax finish. We do know that kids chew on their cribs."

Hankey also noted that some baby toys, such as wooden blocks or letters, can be made of engineered wood. Opt for pieces made from whole, natural wood, she said.

Diapers

Some studies show disposable diapers generate more than 3.5 million tons of waste that ends up in landfills in the United States each year.

Whether you use a service or wash at home, there is an electricity-free drying system on the market called the Dryerpod. Made in Carbondale, Colo., the Dryerpod employs your home's heating system to dry the young one's clothes and diapers.

"It's a beautiful piece of wooden furniture that looks like a wardrobe," said Amanda Chesnutt, manager at Bundle Diaper Service and Baby Shop in Boulder. "They've made it so that there are hanging drawers with a hole in the bottom, so if you stick it over your vent, it dries your clothes, and it also humidifies your house."

The air

A natural way to help purify the air in a baby's room is to add some plants that detoxify the air. Several years ago, NASA conducted a study and discovered 15 or so house plants that are effective at cleaning indoor air.

Some common plants on the list reported to help clean the air of formaldehyde include bamboo palm, golden pathos and peace lily.

Hankey warned, though, that some plants on the NASA list can be harmful to pets, particularly cats, if they ingest them. Find a list of plants toxic and harmless to house pets created by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals online at aspca.org.

Of course, keeping baby safe from everything that's potentially harmful is an impossible task. But a healthy nursery is doable.

"You're not going to stay away from all (the toxins in the environment)," Hankey said. "But if you can just make the 12, 15 or 18 hours that the baby is sleeping in the nursery safe, the baby's going to get a good start."

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story